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Donald Trump uses MS-13 gang violence in Long Island to push for deportations

President Donald Trump travelled on Friday to Long Island, New York, where a community has been shocked by a recent spate of graphic gang murders. The president intends to highlight his efforts to stop illegal immigration and boost deportations. Trump’s trip to Long Island gives the president an opportunity to showcase some progress on his agenda even as other legislative efforts flounder – and some respite from the chaos of a nasty power struggle among his senior staff that blew up on Thursday. On Friday, Trump will highlight his administration’s push to deport members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, better known as MS-13, the existence of which his White House blames on lax enforcement of illegal immigration from Central America. Departing for Long Island now. An area under siege from #MS13 gang members. We will not rest until #MS13 is eradicated. #LESMpic.twitter.com/GsgbBUXyHS— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017 “It’s going to be a very forceful message about just how menacing this threat is, and just how much pain is inflicted on American communities,” a senior administration official told reporters ahead of the trip. Trump’s visit comes as his Attorney General Jeff Sessions traveled to El Salvador to highlight progress on the gang crack-down. The gang took root in Los Angeles in the 1980s in neighbourhoods populated with immigrants from El Salvador who had fled civil war. The Justice Department has said MS-13 now has more than 10,000 members across the United States. On Long Island – not far from the New York City borough of Queens, where Trump grew up – MS-13 was behind the murders of two teenage girls in a suburban neighbourhood last September, and four young men in a park in April. There have been 17 murders on Long Island tied to the gang since January …read more